Hollywood celebrities condemn silence over Gaza 'genocide' as Cannes Film Festival opens

Jury president Juliette Binoche did not sign letter but later paid tribute to Gazan photojournalist Fatima Hassouna

More than 380 actors, directors and filmmakers have accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza.

"We cannot remain silent while genocide is taking place in Gaza," an open letter published on Tuesday read. The letter was initiated by pro-Palestinian activist groups and published in the US magazine Variety and the French newspaper Liberation.

The signatories included Hollywood stars Ralph Fiennes, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon, the acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and former Cannes winner Ruben Ostlund.

The open letter paid tribute to Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the star of a documentary that will be premiered at Cannes, who was killed in an Israeli air strike. Hassouna, 25, was killed along with 10 relatives, including her pregnant sister, in a strike on her family home in northern Gaza

“She was a Palestinian freelance photojournalist. She was targeted by the Israeli army on 16 April 2025, the day after it was announced that Sepideh Farsi’s film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, in which she was the star, had been selected in the Acid [Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema] section of the Cannes Film Festival,” the letter stated.

The letter, which urged the film community to "rise up" and "name reality", also criticised the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for not immediately defending Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal after he was attacked by Israeli settlers this year.

“We are ashamed of such passivity. Why is it that cinema, a breeding ground for socially committed works, seems to be so indifferent to the horror of reality and the oppression suffered by our sisters and brothers?” they asked.

This year's Cannes jury president Juliette Binoche was initially said by organisers to have signed the petition, but her spokeswoman said that she had not endorsed it and her name was not published by Liberation.

Binoche took to the stage at the opening ceremony on Tuesday to honour Hassouna, condemning violence and referencing the "hostages of October 7", though she never mentioned Israel by name and did not use the word "genocide".

Binoche said: “On the 16th of last April, at dawn in Gaza, at the age of 25, the photojournalist Fatma Hassouna and 10 of her relatives were killed by a missile that struck their house. She had written: ‘My death went through me / the bullet of the assailant went through me / and I became an angel / in the eyes of a city / immense, bigger than my dreams / bigger than this city. / I became a saintly poet in the eyes of a forest / making myself a hermit / and taking a cypress as an offering.’

“The night before her death, she learnt that the film in which she appeared was selected here at Cannes. Fatma should have been among us tonight. Art remains. It’s the powerful testimony of our lives, our dreams, and we the viewers, we embrace it. May Cannes, where everything can change, contribute to that.”

Other signatories include British director Jonathan Glazer, American star Mark Ruffalo and Spanish actor Javier Bardem. Glazer stirred controversy last year when, while accepting an Oscar for his Auschwitz drama The Zone of Interest, he said the Holocaust had been "hijacked" by Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories.

His remarks drew sharp criticism from Jewish groups and supporters of Israel, who accused him of distorting history. The director later clarified that his comments were meant to highlight civilian suffering in Gaza but he stood by his criticism of Israeli policies.